MinterEllisonRuddWatts

Litigation and Dispute Resolution - Employment

Partner

Gillian specialises in people risk management for businesses. She is sought after for both her legal advice and thought leadership on complex and high-value matters affecting people in the workplace. She is an expert in employment, industrial relations, health and safety, privacy, human rights, and discrimination.

Her clients comprise some of New Zealand’s leading companies and their boards of directors. She advises on union issues and collective bargaining across many sectors including transport, oil and gas, retail, health and aged care, public services, financial services, and customer services. A seasoned litigator, Gillian regularly represents her clients throughout the mediation process and at all levels of the court system.

Gillian is passionate about the future of work and the challenges organisations face both locally and globally. She is a highly regarded thought leader on flexible working and worker status, complex pieces of legislation such as the Holidays Act, and strategic industrial relations issues. She is a regular speaker at the New Zealand Law Society’s biennial Employment Law Conference, including designing and chairing the event. Gillian has also designed the GuideME programme, a suite of training products to assist organisations in navigating the legal system as it applies to workplaces.

Following her curiosity about different work models to enable more people to get into work, Gillian is a 4 Day Week Global Ambassador and a Trustee of The Warehouse Group’s NZ Future Skills Fund (a trust designed to expand the skill sets of workers into different areas including the digital economy).

Gillian has international experience having practised employment law at McGrigors (now Pinsent Mason) in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London.

English

Trustee, The Warehouse Group, NZ Future Skills Fund

LLB (Hons), DIP LP, University of Glasgow (1998)